Re: Plans for gnuplot version 5

[Juhász P. <pet...@gm...>]

On Wed, 2014-03-05 at 15:02 -0800, Ethan A Merritt wrote:
> On Wednesday, 05 March, 2014 22:37:23 Juhász Péter wrote:
> > On Wed, 2014-03-05 at 09:52 -0800, Ethan A Merritt wrote:
> 
> > I cannot help but mention that I've always found the definition,
> > interaction and documentation of linetypes and linestyles confusing and
> > somewhat redundant.
> > 
> > In my opinion, "linetype" should mean the line pattern (continuous vs.
> > dashed vs. dotted vs...) and only that, while linestyle should encompass
> > all attributes that a line can have (color, pattern, pointinterval
> > etc.).
> > The two should be decoupled and clearly differentiated.
> > Linetype (meaning pattern, as defined above) should be settable
> > independently, on its own.
> 
>  Allowing a bit of non-backwards compatibility is one thing.
> Breaking every gnuplot script in existence is quite another!
> 
> If "lt N" and "lt N+1" no longer produce distinguishable lines
> then I think no one will use gnuplot any more.  The use of dot/dash
> patterns to distinguish lines is only realistic for high resolution
> (mostly print) devices.   So no, I do not think we can even consider
> abandoning the idea that a linetype encompasses more than the
> dot/dash pattern.
> 

While I maintain that the existing state of affairs with
linetypes/linestyles is unfortunate, I have to concede that it is indeed
to late to change it. Their current, confusing definitions have been
given too early in the history of the project.
The problem with my proposal, now that I think about it, is that most
interactive terminals default to non-dashed mode, so for these, the
linetype setting would indeed become a no-op as per the default
settings.


> > This is the main thing, while user-definable, custom linetypes (possibly
> > even with fancy syntax like "---..") would be a nice plus.
> > 
> > I might try to implement this when I have the time, provided that you
> > agree.
> 
> I think it would be great to introduce a new fundamental property,
> "dashtype | dt" I suppose, that is shared by all capable terminals
> and ignored by non-capable terminals.   I think it would be a lot of
> work but I don't immediately see that it would break compatibility.
> 

It would in the sense that the default dash patterns would conceivably
be uniformized across the capable terminals, so some of them would
produce different plots.

> > Also, may ask what is your proposed timeline for 5.0?
> 
> That's what I'm trying to determine.
> 

OK, I rephrase the question: what's your latest preferred date for the
final release? End of this year perhaps?
I think it would be beneficial if you set a tentative date because then
potential contributors would be able to gauge whether their proposed new
features are plausible within that timeframe.

Peter